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Nepal 2013 Week 5 - Water Flows and the Project Concludes

A fantastic team effort in the home stretch results in one more water resource. Our project is complete, and water is flowing throughout Astam

Category:Nepal 2013

Posted by: Rome

Very early this Wednesday morning 3 Jeeps came to take all of us off the mountain and back to our familiar lives.

As our convoy slowly descended the bumpy road, we passed one home after another in front of which whole families stood to wave goodbye.From the youngest kids to the grandparents.We will miss each other.We had connected.They understood their new water filtration system.Every tank was full and overflowing.We were proud, happy and choked up.And limping "Tripod" escorted us all the way down the hill.

In 5 weeks time, the local community had gone from doubting the effectiveness of our efforts, to intense arguing about where they would let us install trenches, to digging new trenches on their own with gusto!

In fact, on our very last work day we installed 3 more 2,000 liter tanks, and all the piping, concrete and about 120 more feet of filter trench because they convinced a previously uncooperative person to allow it. What a day that was! Several Week 5 volunteers offered to pitch in extra funds and we worked together with the locals like a well tuned team to get one more whole system assembled in a single long day.

In the end, 13 tanks at 5 different locations all overflowed with water.

In the end, the local community had organized and selected a 7 member Water Management Committee, made rules about not wasting water, using overflow water first, and hooking up every one of the 67 families to the new system. Excitement ruled every day of the last week.

In the end, we left them spare water pumps, lots of rolls of piping and a treasure chest full of our tools and parts to fix anything that might break, along with the rupees we had left for their maintenance fund.

As always, 'thank you' to all our volunteers seems so inadequate. You spent your time, money, sweat and blood. You endured long days, concrete burns, cold showers and sleepless nights.

Mostly though, you gave your grin, you played foreign language charades, you teased the kids and you got enough Tika applied to last a lifetime.